January 08, 2008

Turnout

by publius
Huge turnout is reported in New Hampshire. In fact, some towns are afraid of running out of ballots -- Democratic ballots:

The New Hampshire Secretary of State's office is in the process of locating extra ballots to ship to towns that have expressed concern that supplies are running low. The concern is primarily on the Democratic side, officials say.

Obviously, this is very good news for Obama, and bad news for Clinton. But the key battle tonight is Romney and McCain. The flood on the Democratic side suggests that the indies are requesting Dem ballots rather than GOP ones. That's bad news for McCain, but good news for Romney. More tonight.

Now now Eric, I'm sure the nice Mr. Cleek was just commenting sarcastically on how the Leader of the Free World™ is selected these days, and is completely unaware that yours truly will be incommunicado during the real date when the next deciderator is determined, February 5th, and is thus craving results more intensly in anticipation of missing the real date.

OCSteve, I haven't read the article, but is it really likely to affect the Paul supporters? David Neiwert has been writing about similar stuff for ages, and it hasn't had much effect. TNR has more readers, but does it have more credibility among Paulites?

As for Obama, I'm not counting my chickens. The Clintons and the Democratic establishment have plenty of tricks left up their sleeves. I think Intrade is suffering from irrational exuberance on the subject: prices have suddenly gone to about 75 Obama and 25 Clinton for the Democratic nomination market (and the site seems to be getting overloaded).

KinDC: I checked over at Reason, and while it seems to be discomforting a few of them, the general gist seems to be:

1) It's a conspiracy to deny Paul the nomination. Obviously he's crushing in New Hampshire.
2) It shows the liberals AND the conservatives fear him!
3) It's old news, not important, please, he's hardly racist and you're such an idiot/liberal to believe that.

There's a LOT of number 1 and 2. For such supposed rational thinkers, they've got a serious case of the starry eyes over Paul's chances.

And, in any case, I always like seeing higher turnout (even if the result was 2004....involvement is better than apathy).

The problem with 2004 was the rigged voting machines and other efforts by Republicans to steal the election. The other problem was the general refusal to admit that the exit polls showed this had happened. Landslide victory in 2006 overcame 2004-type efforts to rig the election - just: possibly, a landslide in 2008 will also overcome efforts to rig the election, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Well, duh. They didn't revive a long discredited smear at this precise moment to help him. Or by accident. In a way it's a complement that they felt it necessary to sink to this level to spike his campaign.

Paul can't win, of course, but it's obvious some high placed people want it made absolutely clear that anyone who runs on restoring limited, constitutional government is going to be destroyed. I think they're afraid the founding principles of this country still have some appeal to the citizenry, even if they've been repudiated by the ruling class.

I was a radical feminist in the late 60s and 70s. The blatant sexism of this election has radicalized me once again at age 62. Gloria Steinem said in today's Times that women are the only group that gets more liberal with age. I fantasize that the huge turnout is older women voters who have realized that vitally important feminist issues are being ignored. We don't know about them because they don't write blogs.

New Hampshire, unlike Iowa, has a tradition of electing women. Whatever you think of Clinton's politics, she is a brilliant woman who has devoted most of her life to public service. I can't think of any political figure who has been attacked as vituperatively as she has. At the very least you should admire her courage. Women should realize that it is not just happening to her; it is happening to them. For 15 years she has been derided as a cold, unemotional robot. She allows herself one moment of vulnerability and suddenly she is unfit to be commander in chief or she faked the emotions to manipulate the voters. Clinton is portrayed as losing it because she got pissed and emotional in the same week. Its only her age that saves her from PMS attacks.

It is perfectly possible to oppose Clinton for president, but speak out against the revolting sexism manifested in this campaign. The first serious woman presidential candidate should not have to laugh off signs that say, "Iron my shirt" without anyone else raising the issue. That bitch was left off the sign is hardly a feminist milestone.

Why isn't this an important issue? More to the point, why aren't women of all ages demanding that it become an important issue. I am afraid most women are too exhausted by their personal and work lives to have any energy for feminist protest.

Intelligent women educated at major universities do not face major discrimination in their early careers. That victory has been won. However, when they have children or have to care for aging parents or sick husbands, everything changes.

I'll agree with Redstocking in that sexism fuels a lot of the attacks on Clinton. She's not my candidate of choice, but that's because I like other candidates better. I don't have to dump on her because I like other positions better---and I like her than whole slates of candidates.

And that whole deal about "showing emotion" was crap, from my perspective, both in direct comments on her and in trying to hound comments from the other two front runners. Tabloid, sloppy journalism trying to pass itself off as political investigation....

I agree with the points made by Redstocking and others, as well as the rejecting of Edwards for his ill considered remarks, which, even though seem to be a one off thing, for me are as close to disqualifying as one gets. But I'm still more of an Obama fan than a HRC fan, so I'm wondering how much of a break/consideration should she get because of these attacks?

It seems to me that Obama's strategy in Iowa suggests that he is going to look outside the box in a lot of other ways. I would accept that a lot of the 'hope mongering' (btw, it is brilliant how Obama has been able to take something thrown at him as a negative and turn it into a positive) is snake oil, but (and this may be taking a HRC plus and turning it into a minus) the doggedness by which that campaign has been conducted as well as the turn to negative campaigning really suggests to me that there is little or no out of the box thinking. I'm curious what folks here who support HRC would argue as counters to that.

Hillary wasn't crying because campaigning, like presidenting, is hard work. She was mad as hell about what's been done to this country and pissed at the implied premise of the surging Obama campaign, which is that 'unity' will solve our problems.

She had a moment in which she recognized the stakes of this election. I have one of those every couple of days, and while I don't cry when I'm angry (I go to the gym and beat on the 15 pound speed bag) almost every woman I know does. Also, the men who have any brains at all and a heart too.

I don't trust Hillary and I don't think I like her much, but that video was the first time I've ever thought, She would make a helluva president.

"Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!! It's C++ vs. partnership basis stripping transactions in a showdown for the ages! See Cleek the Geek and Ugh the Pugh face off in a clash of compiling wizardry and cross-border lending! Watch as Cleek attacks using his legendary disemvoweller ju-jitsu, only to be parried by Ugh's section 704(c) allocation kung-fu! Fun for the whole family! Only 49.99 on Pay. Per. VIEW!!!"

It is perfectly possible to oppose Clinton for president, but speak out against the revolting sexism manifested in this campaign.

Right on, and thank you.

On another blog I made the comment that I'd look forward to the day when a male candidate was heckled with signs demanding that he take out the trash and mow the lawn. But, you know, nobody will ever do that. It just won't come up.

Clinton is not my first choice because, IMO, her foreign policy instincts are more hawkish then I'd like. That said, she's an intelligent, accomplished person who knows her stuff cold, and who works her ass off. Nobody should have to take the kind of crap she's had to take.

Remember when Al Gore was "epicene"? Same load of smart-ass garbage.

Brett, I'm sure there are folks who could run on a policy of restoring limited, Constitutional government who would not also be highly vulnerable to claims of racism. I'm not sure Ron Paul is one of those people.

A friend pointed out to me: the Dems picked Kerry in '04 because they thought he was electable. Now they're picking *HRC* -- one of the most despised people in America -- in '08 because they think she's electable.

Presidential elections are always decided by bullsh**, or that's my impression. I refuse to care about who said what stupid thing about which candidate. They'd all trash each other's grandmothers if an exit poll told them it would help.

Of course nobody I actually like would have a chance of winning anyway. Someone wake me when it's time to vote.

I would have advised Obama to give a stirring speech against sexism. After all he has two daughters; I am sure his wife would be delighted to write it:) Many pissed off women might have taken a deep breath and reconsidered. I wasn't the only woman who realized that feminist issues were over-my-dead-body ones. Just read blogs like Shakesville and Feministing. I am grateful to the media for reviving feminism.

Ara, that's my question too. Amanda Marcotte's switch from Edwards to Obama because of Edwards's reaction to Clinton made sense to me. But switching from Obama to Clinton? Why punish the black man who had nothing to do with it?